God’s Church – Are we bringing rubber and road together…
What is the role of God’s church when confronted with the real suffering of a fellow Christian?
Relieve that suffering? Don’t answer too quickly…
What if that suffering is for a reason? Let’s suppose God is teaching and growing that Christian through the suffering. But how are we to judge that and keep from interfering with His plan? Should we even attempt to?
But I don’t recall the Lord saying anything about withholding aid from others in the church. Am I missing something?
This is a very real and troubling question in my mind, right now, dealing with a very real and troubling situation… RIGHT NOW.
This Christian is in a destructive housing situation and has no way out on their own. It appears to be heavily interfering with their growth as a Christian. Add some mental illness in for good measure, and that is one sticky wicket.
One of our pastors is working with this person in a weekly counseling session; this seems way too circumspect an approach to me.
My instinct is to rush in and fix things, whatever I can, right now. Get the church elders together and figure out how we’re going to help! Can we not solve this? But I realize this urge is not always the wisest move.
Is our church too timid? Are we afraid to be bold in coming alongside this suffering, creating solutions instead of sympathy?
Or, are we going to hurt by helping? Is the circumspect approach appropriate? I’m not sold on it.
Where is the rest of my church? Why is no one else befriending this person in a tangible way during the week? Why aren’t we confronting our people, assigning people to get to know this person?!? Surely that doesn’t cost anything, and can only help.
This person is crying out for help to me – I can’t solve this alone – what can I say?
For now I guess I’ll trust the pastor’s take on it. But what if he’s WRONG?
Confused, befuddled and frustrated,
Dick Ness
Wow man. Tough stuff. Sounds like you are going through some stuff too, granted it may be just frustration at whats going on with a brother.
My initial take on suffering is to stop it and like you said it isn’t always the best. But regardless of whether you can fix it or not, I think Christians are called to come along side and enter into the suffering with someone. Offering encouragement and comfort.
As far as why others aren’t helping, I can only answer for myself. I don’t know anything about the situation and a lot of that probably goes back to me not getting too involved in too many peoples time because of how selfish I am with my time.
And as far as it not costing anything to get to know this person and hanging out, I would strongly disagree. I think time is a more valued asset then money. And getting people to freely give of it is a really hard sell.
I am getting more and more ok with trusting our pastor who has plenty of experience in this kind of mercy ministry. I’ll play my role and come alongside as best I can.
Regarding time and its cost, I agree. But if I can clarify, our church has more time than money at the moment, so why not spend the capital we do have?
I’ve also heard of a couple others engaging with this person this week, so praise God for that! The more we can be in their life, the better it will be for them… and us.